Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant's election with traverse of Group II, claims 8-13, in the reply filed on November 12, 2025 is acknowledged. The traversal is on the ground(s) that the pressure reservoirs store a flowable medium and the plastic preforms are applied for expansion using air. This is not found persuasive because the apparatus as claimed can be used to practice another and materially different process, such as a process that does not route bottom pressurization through the stretching rod.
The requirement is still deemed proper and is therefore made FINAL.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 8-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Brunner (US 2011/0057343) in view of Haesendonckx (US 2009/0278288).
Claim 8: Brunner discloses an apparatus for forming plastic preforms into plastic containers with a transport device which transports the plastic preforms along a predetermined transport path (abstract; figs. 1-2; ¶ 28), wherein the transport device has a rotatable transport carrier (24’) on which a plurality of forming stations for forming the plastic preforms into the plastic containers is arranged (figs. 1-2), wherein the forming stations each have a stretching rod with which the plastic preforms are stretched in their longitudinal direction and have application devices which apply the plastic preforms with the flowable medium (¶ 34), and wherein the apparatus has at least four pressure reservoirs which store the flowable medium and the plastic preforms can be applied with at least a first pressure level stored in the first pressure reservoir (¶¶ 33-34; figs. 1-2), a second pressure level stored in the second pressure reservoir(¶¶ 33-34; figs. 1-2), a third pressure level stored in the third pressure reservoir and a fourth pressure level stored in the fourth pressure reservoir (¶¶ 33-34; figs. 1-2), wherein the second pressure level is higher than the first pressure level and the third pressure level is higher than the second pressure level and the fourth pressure level is higher than the third pressure level (¶¶ 33-34; figs. 1-2).
Brunner is silent as to the apparatus having a bottom application device which is suitable for applying the bottoms of the plastic preforms or containers with the flowable medium during the expansion process. However, in the same field of endeavor, Haesendonckx discloses an apparatus for forming plastic preforms into plastic containers, including a hollow space providing in a stretch rod which acts as a temporary reservoir for blowing gas that flows into the hollow space (¶¶ 16-17) and, after a drop in blowing pressure, is transferred out of the hollow space and into the interior space of the blow mold toward the bottom of the container (¶¶ 16-17). The stretch rod has discharge ports positioned in the region near the stretch rod tip, which direct the cooling gas toward the bottom of the container (¶ 17). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the application to have modified the apparatus of Brunner with the stretch rod having discharge ports of Haesendonckx because Haesendonckx teaches that directing cooling gas from the stretch rod toward the bottom of the container advantageously reduces process time by actively cooling the bottom region, which accumulates a relatively large amount of material and requires more intense cooling than the sidewalls (¶¶ 16-17).
Claim 9: Brunner discloses a fifth pressure reservoir (volume 23) which stores compressed air for applying the plastic preforms with a further pressure level (fig. 1; ¶ 33). Haesendonckx discloses that the interior space of the stretch rod is coupled with an auxiliary reservoir for cooling gas, and that this storage volume is filled from the interior of the container or from an external cooling gas source (¶ 24).
Claim 10: Brunner discloses during recovery phase 32 air from the blow mold B or the container 40 is fed via the opening check valve 12’ into the volume 8 (¶ 36).
Claim 11: Brunner discloses rotary machine with 36+ blow molds sharing common ring channel volumes, and since each blow mold operates in a time-staggered manner on the rotating carousel, one staqion drawing from a reservoir while another station simultaneously returns air to the same reservoir at a different phase of the blow cycle, the supply and return periods are capable of not being synchronized with one another.
Claim 12: Brunner discloses for any given ring channel volume (volume 8 for preblow) one station is capable of drawing preblow air while another station is in the recovery phase feeding air back into the same volume, these operations are determined by the position of each station on the carousel and would not be synchronized.
Claim 13: Brunner discloses the intermediate blow stage 9 (second reservoir) and the higher blow stage volume 10 (third reservoir) both participate in the cascade recovery (¶ 29).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LARRY THROWER whose telephone number is (571)270-5517. The examiner can normally be reached 9am-5pm MT M-F.
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/LARRY W THROWER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1754